


The Taming of Cicero

by Ghelik



Series: Life after the Mountain [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Bellamy, As you might notice, Bellamy-centric, F/M, Grounder Culture, Horses, Humor, I Tried, Light Angst, Or trying to, Post-Mount Weather, Post-Season/Series 02, Sad Bellamy, because he's not very good at it, but that's not really my strong suit, dealing with a lot of shit, gifts that might want to kill you, grounders giving nicknames, unbetad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:08:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7141970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cicero looks at him with utter contempt and he’s sure he’s going to get trampled to death and that’s the only reason he’s been given the horse in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taming of Cicero

Lexa arrives at Arkadia to discuss the entry of Skaikru into her Coalition. Needless to say, Bellamy is neither interested nor invited to the discussion of the terms. He has gladly stepped back to let Abby and Kane handle things.

 

He understands the need of an accord since they need to live with these people, but that doesn’t mean he has to either like it or be helpful in any way because this Heda is the one responsible for abandoning them in the Mountain.

  
So when the delegation comes for the third time, he does what he's done the other times and vanishes into the training grounds. Only this time Kane summons him to the gates where the grounders stand in all their terrifying glory.

  
Lexa is petite, has brown hair and a cog stuck between her eyebrows. He wonders – briefly – if she can even frown with that thing there. She looks regal and terrible, and Bellamy hates her with a passion and doesn’t bother to hide it. He knows he’s earned a reputation for what he did inside the mountain – infiltrating and helping kill all of the mountain men. He’s heard the names the grounders have given some of skaikru. Raven is the Bringer of Fire, for some reason. He’s the Knife in the Dark. Clarke’s the Commander of Death, and he prays she never hears that name.

  
Lexa fixes Bellamy with a stare before making a sign to one of her minions to come forward bringing with him an enormous black horse with mean red eyes and hooves as big as his hands.

  
"A present," Heda announces looking pointedly at him, "for the Natswis."

  
Bellamy swallows, opens his mouth to say..., something unkind, probably, but Kane’s there to put a hand on his shoulder and butt in with his most diplomatic smile.

  
"He accepts," Bellamy can feel the Chancellor fixing him with a stern look, fingers digging harshly into his trapeze, "graciously."

  
Bellamy can’t help but snort at that. Still, he takes the reigns from the grounder while Lexa proudly states:  
  


"This is the swiftest battle steed of the land."

  
"You sure you won’t be needing it?"

  
Someone behind him barks a laugh. Kane’s hand on his shoulder tightens nearly painfully. He’s certain the Chancellor is trying really hard not to murder him where he stands. The grounders growl, some hands land on sword-hilts but Lexa just tightens her jaw, a muscle jumping where she’s probably biting back a response.

  
That’s how Bellamy Blake acquires a horse, even though he doesn’t like horses and is secretly sure they want to kill him.

 

***

 

It’s his sister’s fault.

  
She’s the one who’s impressed by the big black horse. But instead of letting Bellamy just give it to her and be done with the whole “you now have a pet/potential vehicle” thing she convinces him to learn to ride.

  
Which attracts an audience the second he steps into the pen leading the horse by the reigns. He’s dubbed him Cicero since Octavia insisted a name would make them bond quicker.  
  


It was a filthy lie.  
  


Cicero looks at him with utter contempt, and the young man is sure he’s going to get trampled to death, and that’s the only reason he’s been given the horse in the first place.

  
He puts a hand on the saddle, another on the animal’s shoulder the way he’s seen his sister do it a thousand times. A foot on the stirrup and braces himself to jump up. Only that’s when the animal decides he’s had enough and takes off.

  
Bellamy manages to stay hanging from the side of the saddle out of pure reflex.  
  


He can hear his audience laughing and curses Lexa and every fucking grounder to ever walk the Earth - colorfully. The horse turns, slamming him into the fence, knocking the air out of his lungs and managing to dislodge him.

 

***

 

Bellamy manages to climb onto the animal’s back on his seventh try and only because his bruised pride won’t allow him to let that grounder horse win. He’s fucking Skaikru, and he’s perfectly capable of riding a horse, thank you very fucking much. So he counts it a small victory when he manages to jump onto the saddle – without overcompensating and falling headfirst back down – he knows Miller’s the one who laughed the hardest and he’s going to pay. Not that Cicero even lets him bask in his small victory before rearing onto his hind legs. He rolls off the animal’s back and manages – barely - to jump out of the way before those immense hooves bash his brain in.

  
By now he is angry. So he jumps back up to the cheering of his audience, running after the animal until he corners it and grabs the reins on the right side. He knows the horse will start running, so he is prepared and grabs the saddle and pulls his weight onto Cicero’s back, where he stays; grabbing the thick mane with white-knuckled fists, and trying to encircle the belly with his legs while Cicero jumps and kicks his hind legs up.

 

When Cicero stops, he is – miraculously – still perched on his back, breathing as hard as the horse and covered in sweat. 

 

Cicero looks at him over his shoulder with those eerie red eyes and paws the dirt. They look at each other warily for a moment, before Bellamy sits up, settling into the saddle, slipping his feet into the stirrups. The horse doesn’t move.

  
He takes the reins in his hands like he’s seen Octavia do. The horse doesn’t move, just keeps his ears pointing back at him. He gives a tentative kick with his legs. Cicero starts walking with a snort, tossing its head like an exasperated parent.

 

Bellamy throws a confused look at Octavia, who is sitting on the fence and giving him two thumbs up. He tries not to stiffen when he sees Lincoln standing next to her. The grounder warrior nods at him, and he has to look away swallowing back bile. His eyes fall on Lexa, her arms crossed over her chest and a small frown on her face. He stops Cicero in front of her and tries to look comfortable on the beast he’s tamed. Wants to say something witty that makes her mad or something.

  
"No," she mumbles. "I still don’t see it."

  
Lexa walks away, her shoulders stiff, leaving Bellamy confused and uncomfortable. 

 

***

 

Gina likes Cicero. She loves the soft fur of his muzzle and the fact that he seems to turn into a playful puppy whenever she comes to visit: jumping around her and butting his head against her shoulders. 

 

Bellamy is most definitively not jealous of her. It’s not like he likes the horse, or enjoys the swiftness with which it can run across the plain surrounding Arkadia. So, there is no reason for him to be jealous that he lets Gina ride him without a fuss, and that’s why he’s not jealous, just curious as to why his own horse would rather be good with anybody else.

 

 _'If you fall off that thing and break your neck I’m not going to patch you up_.'

  
He turns so quickly something in his back pops. But there’s nobody there, certainly nobody with a blond mane and clear blue eyes. He swallows. He notices Lincoln watching and jumps on the horse. For once Cicero walks out of the gates without pulling on the reins or tossing his head trying to tear his arms off.

  
He is getting used to hearing Clarke, he really is. It still comes as a surprise sometimes, that’s why he turns so quickly, or why he is left feeling disconcerted afterward. But he knows it’s just his imagination filling in the gaps. It happened with his mom and Octavia when the guards took them away. He would hear Octavia laughing, or a firm scolding from his mother whenever he did something wrong. He can live with it. Not a big deal.

  
Bellamy kicks the sides of the horse, and Cicero jumps forward, tearing through the perimeter like a bullet. It is the closest he will come to being free, and it lifts the weight off his shoulders a little.

  
When he comes back breathing hard, and with a thin sheen of sweat covering him and Cicero, Lincoln is waiting. The grounder walks steadily next to the horse up to the stables that by now house ten horses. And waits while Bellamy cleans his mount and stores everything away and makes as much time as possible without it looking like he was hiding; which he isn’t.

  
The stoic warrior keeps looking at him with the same stare he used when Bellamy strung him up and tortured him, and Bellamy feels like he had back then: small and twisted and wrong. At least then he had had some sort of excuse. It wasn’t only anger and fear for himself it was for the hundred. He had done it so that others didn’t have to – look how well that went.

  
But now there is no reason for him to flee his presence other than his stomach turning and that phantom smell of bleach, the rasp of the broom and the feeling of the collar around his neck. Bellamy pushes it all back and forces his brain to shut up and stop chanting: ' _traitor, traitor, traitor, traitor'_ whenever he sees Lincoln.

  
"We need to talk," Lincolns says.

  
"No. We do not."

  
The warrior puts a hand on his shoulder: big and heavy and warm and Bellamy loses it.  
  


He has been training with Octavia, learning to fight like the grounders, because it makes her happy and because it is useful, so throwing Lincoln over his shoulder is just a reflex.  
  


"Don’t touch me!"

  
"Bellamy…"

  
"No! Shut up!" he feels stupid, weak and small like a child. He’s scared and tired and isn’t sure if he wants to beat the crap out of him or flee as far as possible.

  
And this… this _grounder_ is just lying there, on his back, with his hands open in front of him like Bellamy's a dangerous animal that needs special handling. 

  
"Bellamy," he says with that calm, deep voice he sometimes uses on scared horses. "I know you’re..."

  
"YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING!" Bellamy aims a kick at him, but he’s off, or Lincoln moves because he only graces his leg. "YOU LEFT ME THERE TO DIE!" He’s shaking and crying and feels useless and can’t get the tears to stop. He guesses this is how Octavia must have felt when they took her away. How his mother felt when they floated her. It’s awful, even if he deserves it.  "You were supposed to be trustworthy. And then you bent your knee to them…," his throat feels raw, he cannot breathe and cannot see.  "T-they could have turned me into…," _into you_ , he doesn’t say.  "You knew they could have turned me into a fucking ripper. And still, you bent your knee to them!"

  
Lincoln was supposed to protect Octavia.  
  


If they had turned him into a ripper, he could have gone after his sister, after Clarke, Raven and the rest of skaikru. Bellamy still wakes up sometimes, scared that he’s in a cage and that they’re going to turn him against his people. That he’s going to fail them…, again.

  
"How could you?"

  
Lincoln has picked himself up at some point. Bellamy hasn’t noticed. The grounder looks small opening and closing his mouth without uttering a sound. It’s wrong, somehow. Bellamy put a nail through his hand, and he hadn’t screamed. Now he hangs his head and says very softly:

  
"There are no words to explain. Nothing I can offer you to mend what I have…"

  
"Just tell me why? Why would you put my people in danger? You promised to protect O… Why did you betray her?"

  
"There’s no explanation I can give you that won’t sound hollow. The red was stronger than I. I thought I could resist it. But I couldn’t," he presses his lips together. "You don’t know how deeply I regret that decision. That moment of weakness that has cost you so much. I would do anything to take it back. But I cannot."

  
' _And now he has to live with what he’s done_ ,' Clarke’s voice cuts through the haze in his brain like a knife, and he shudders from head to toe.

  
He understands what addiction means. God knows there were many addictions on the Ark, many ways to color the gray lives inside their metal coffin in the sky.

 

 His mother was addicted to moonshine those last few years when the weight of their secret started to overwhelm her. Many had been floated for stealing morphine or alcohol, or other, more colorful things.

  
But understanding and forgiving are two different things. And he is not like Clarke, no matter how much he wishes he was.

  
He wants to forgive him as she forgave him.  
But he cannot. He’s still scared, feels betrayed and still hates him and he cannot forgive him.

  
Bellamy stalks off, pressing his lips together and staring down anybody who dares to look at him.

**Author's Note:**

> This was unbetad 
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting :)


End file.
